Food Waste Warriors

Why is food waste a big deal?

Our friends over at Guardians of Grub report “18% of the food purchased by the UK Hospitality and Food Service sector is being thrown away” - ouch! If we measured food waste’s greenhouse gases as if it were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world (China and the USA taking the top two places). As a caterer, it’s glaringly obvious that to achieve progress in improving our impact, we should turn our focus to fighting food waste.

Angry Monk and OLIO

We achieve more by working alongside like-minded organisations to tackle food waste. Angry Monk, a surplus produce wholesaler, provides fresh surplus fruit and veg for our menus. With Angry Monk, we rescue around one tonne of surplus food per month. We collaborate with OLIO and clients to share surplus canteen food at the end of service. OLIO's Food Waste Heroes collect the food and use their clever app to distribute the meals quickly throughout the community (literally anyone can order it).

Clever Cooking

Behind the scenes, our chefs are continuously tweaking how they cook to be less wasteful, from more considered knife work to developing recipes that incorporate the entire vegetable (such as broccoli stalks). The Ferm rescues some of our vegetable offcuts in their production of kimchi and other fermented products. We also work with client sites to ensure we can amend their orders so less food goes uneaten.